Steeped in stories
Installation Art | Ceramics | PrintArtists: Anisha Thampy and Dwarka Nath Sinha
Tea drinking is not just an act of drinking a beverage. It is laden with history, culture, socio-economic conditions and personal memories. Every community has developed their own way of preparing and consuming this beautiful drink through generations.
When one moves to a new country whether by compulsion or by choice, they invariably leave so much of themselves behind. What they carry with them are these figments of their culture and memories. These memories tell stories of relationships, of objects, of spaces, of tastes, experiences and so on.
We are currently working on this project to document tea drinking from from different cultures in and around Colchester.
The project is currently ongoing.
This commission is made possible through a commission from Essex Cultural Diversity Project supported by Arts Council England, in partnership with Colchester and Ipswich Museums.
Besides meeting different folks from the community at their homes to record their stories around tea we have been engaging with the wider community through thoughtful and playful workshops.
We organised this workshop at Colchester’s Rice & Spice Festival in 2026 where we asked people to sample a small cup of Indian masala chai and then write or draw their experience onto the same cup and stick it to a metaphorical community teapot.
It was heartening to see a lot of people, old and young, excited to give it a try and express themselves in a collaborative exercise.
